Though it has not been officially confirmed by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), the word doing the round suggests the board has all but finalised certain names for the planned Cricket Committee, which, in its own limited context, indicates progress. After all, it is about setting things right at all tiers of administration — local, domestic, national and international. And it goes without saying that things do need a touch here and a nudge there to streamline the act.

The committee, whenever it gets officially in place, will have its work cut out in terms of manoeuvring a disconnect from the past and beginning afresh. The new PCB set-up deserves unqualified approval and acclaim of all concerned. So far, so good.

The names that have leaked out from the corridors of power have their own worth, and one doesn’t have to stretch the imagination too much to see that they have been leaked as ‘feelers’ to prepare for their ultimate announcement (which had not come at the time these lines were being written) and to see if some of them need to be dropped in case they provoke a negative sentiment somewhere. For the benefit of the PCB, here is how many would feel if it goes ahead with the announcement.

The names being touted for providing PCB its new direction — Misbah, Intikhab and Wasim — have their own merits and demerits. It makes sense to think long and hard about them

Misbahul Haq is a name no one in his right mind would object to. He is modern and conventional at the same time. That he was successful like no other Pakistan captain ever was gives him some additional brownie points, but he would have been good enough even without them.

There are two other names — Intikhab Alam and Wasim Akram — both former all-rounders and national captains. They know their cricket for sure.

Let’s take them one at a time, starting with Intikhab. He has been a part of Pakistan cricket management machinery for the last 38 years, and this is after being a national player for a good 18 years — from 1959 to 1977. You can add another couple of years that he spent on the First Class circuit from 1957 onwards, and what you have is 60 years under the belt. That is a lifetime really. So much of experience is a good thing. But so much of experience is also a bad thing … especially for someone out to wipe out the past.

Intikhab is the past, and has worked with so many administrations that he now represents, if not heads, the group of survivors within the mechanism. He can only bring to the table more of the same.

Is it what we are interested in? The PCB boss — the new boss with a new vision — would do well to ask this question standing in front of a mirror. If he has to look sideways while answering it, he would at least know what the right answer is even if he doesn’t acknowledge it in public.

And now to Wasim Akram. The name says it all, doesn’t it? He could do anything on the field which is a good thing. But that could also be a bad thing if his interpretation of ‘anything’ was loose and struggled to differentiate between the legal and the illegal.

And when it comes to legality, it is only fair that we stick to the legal reports rather than the interpretations. The famous (or infamous, depending on how you prefer to look at it) Justice Qayyum report close to the turn of the century looked at match-fixing and other such charges on a group of players. Talking about Wasim, the report listed a number of allegations against him, answered the technicalities on the basis of which the accusations could not get converted into charges, and then announced the verdict thus:

“… [O]nce this Commission looks at the allegations in their totality, this Commission feels that all is not well here and that Wasim Akram is not above board. He has not cooperated with this Commission. It is only by giving Wasim Akram the benefit of the doubt after Ata-ur-Rehman changed his testimony in suspicious circumstances that he has not been found guilty of match-fixing. He cannot be said to be above suspicion. It is, therefore, recommended that he be censured and be kept under strict vigilance and further probe be made either by the Government of Pakistan or by the Cricket Board into his assets acquired during his cricketing tenure and a comparison be made with his income. Furthermore, he should be fined Rs 3 lac.

“More importantly, it is further recommended that Wasim Akram be removed from captaincy of the national team. The captain of the national team should have a spotless character and be above suspicion. Wasim Akram seems to be too sullied to hold that office.”

It needs no further comment from anyone.

About five years after the report was released, Justice Qayyum, for reasons best known to him, said in a widely-reported interview that he hadn’t wanted a “great player” like Wasim to be banned. “For Wasim, I had some soft corner for him. He was a very great player, a very great bowler and I was his fan, and therefore that thing did weigh with me. Two things — one, I didn’t want that the cricket should be deprived of his participation, and the other was that I didn’t want that towards the end of his career ... he should be banned or something like that. My idea was not to find people guilty and then punish them. It was more of a case where I had to do something to put an end to the practice in future. What had happened had happened. You couldn’t turn the clock back, but you had to make sure they wouldn’t repeat what they were doing … The quantum of punishment is more of one’s subjective decision, and I was lenient towards one or two of them.”

And he provided further perspective while talking of Pakistan’s rather strange loss to Bangladesh in a World cup game in 1999: “I was at one time told that you should also enquire into the World Cup — the game when Pakistan lost to Bangladesh — but then, for reasons best known to the government, they stopped me from doing that …” This quote/unquote is from the horse’s mouth.

The PCB boss — the new boss with a new vision — would do well to return to the mirror one more time and pose a simple question. In this day and age, when accountability is the biggest mantra and when bygones are not bygones, and the government is not interested in letting the past remain in the past, is it worth having a legally tainted name associated with a ‘new beginning’?

If he has to look sideways while answering the question, the PCB boss — the new boss with a new vision — would at least know what the right answer is, even if he doesn’t acknowledgeit in public.

humair.ishtiaq@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 21st, 2018